6. SOLON: FOOTNOTES

2 predicaciouns, exhortations; cité, city.

5 sewe, follow; seche, such.

7 dyffuse, renowned.

13 fro, from.

15 holde liberal, considered generosity.

16 mennys, men's.

19 thresour, treasure.

20 lasse, less.

21 richesse, material wealth.

25 soth, truth.

26 seynge, saying; here, their.

28 seth, sees.

30 entremedled, intermingled.

32 dede, did.

34 ho, who; dothe, does.

36 ellis, else.

6. SOLON: EXPLANATORY NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS: B = Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Bühler (1941); CA = Gower's Confessio Amantis; CT = Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; G = Pierpont Morgan Library MS G.66; MED = Middle English Dictionary; OED = Oxford English Dictionary; S = Scrope, Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers, ed. Schofield (1936).

These explanatory notes cannot hope to provide a complete accounting for the source of every proverbial statement in Dicts and Sayings. That task would be a separate book in its own right. Instead, I have attempted to contextualize this rather heterogeneous body of lore by identifying the people and places named in the text, as well as noting points that may be of interest to students and general readers. Those interested in tracing the source of particular quotations should begin by consulting Whiting's Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases From English Writings Mainly Before 1500. Readers are also invited to consult the thorough notes to Knust's Bocados de Oro, the Spanish translation of the original Arabic ancestor of Dicts and Sayings.

1 Zalon. This is Solon (c. 630-c. 560 BC), an Athenian statesman renowned for his wisdom. Something of a progressive, he instituted reforms that made Athenian government more equitable, and introduced a law code more moderate than that of his predecessor Draco, whose name survives in our modern adjective "draconian" (overly harsh).

Zalon establysshed the lawe in Athenes. Compare this nearly identical passage by Higden's anonymous English translator: "Salon . . . ġafe lawes to men of Athenes" (Polychronicon, ed. Lumby, vol. 3, p. 97).

4 he shulde flee from his owen propre wille. The need for man to restrain his "unruly will" was an issue that many medieval writers addressed. See the note to Diogenes, line 17, and the note to Hermes, lines 299-300.

12 undir the swerde and under baner. That is, symbols of military might.

19-22 Here Solon distinguishes between spiritual and material thresour. He notes that the treasure of the wise man (virtue and wisdom) is such that he never loses any by giving it away; material wealth, on the other hand, is an inferior thresour, for once it is given, it is gone.

33 I wepe that that profiteth. A cryptic statement. Perhaps it means that Solon laments that weeping is considered a"profitable" means of expressing grief, whereas presumably a wise man should accept death more stoically.

6. SOLON: TEXTUAL NOTES

26-28 A good soulle sorowith not ne rejoissith nat but whanne she maye see goode thingis and none evell thingis. B adds for she rejoissith after sorowith not ne rejoissith, but such an emendation is not necessary.

32 him a question. The -tion of question is inserted below the end of the line.